Generation Kill

Generation Kill Book Cover

Generation Kill is a book written by a journalist name Evan Wright in which he is embedded to the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of US Marine Corps during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A short mini series with the same name (Generation Kill) is also released by HBO based on the book. I have watched this mini series over & over again, and I like it! Darn it is good!

So how would you expect the Iraqi war starts? I am sure most of us are thinking about artillery strikes and their mighty military planes flying over the skies of Baghdad, bombing military targets. Well not exactly. This 7 episode mini series evolves around the lives of the 1st Recon Marines, which is the first batch of troops to land on Iraqi soil and leads the whole Iraqi invasion in their Humvees, with their trusty M16A4s & god forsaken humours.

Generation Kill

The main characters evolves around Evan Wright and the team he is attached to, Bravo Company's lead vehicle (callsign Hitman1, I guess). I personally like the characters of Sgt. Brad 'Iceman' Colbert, Cpl. Josh Ray Person, Lance Cpl. Harold James Trombley, Sgt. Antonio 'Poke' Espera, First Lt. Nathaniel 'Nate' Fick & of course Captain Dave 'Captain America' McGraw.
You may find other characters here. I can assure you that all the characters here is well & superbly portrayed.

Some brief facts on each characters:

• Sgt Brad 'Iceman' Colbert, is a cool guy, wise & very experienced. He is the team leader of Team 1. Good scout. His experience saved the whole platoon more than once. Doesn't like country music. Alexander Skarsgård played the character very well & he deserves an award for that!
  Famous quotes I like from him : 'Yes, we are the conquering heroes!'.
  
  
  
• Cpl. Josh Ray Person, a driver in Brad's vehicle & Brad's radio telephone operator (RTO). Not a well mannered guy, but his sense of humour goes over the top. The one character u won't be able to forget!! He enjoys singing & talk the crap out of anything.
  Famous quotes I like from him : Too much too love about this guy. I remembered he wrote USA with his piss. LOL.
  
  
• Lance Cpl. Harold James Trombley, a gunner and always yearning to kill. Doesn't feel remorseful when he gets to kill. Given the nickname 'Whooper Junior' after he shot some innocent kids feeding their camels.
  
  
• Sgt Antonio 'Poke' Espera, assistant team lead of Team 1. Always talks about the white people. His remarks on white people are darn funny. He doesn't hate anyone & he is not a racist though.
  
  
• First Lt. Nathaniel 'Nate' Fick, platoon commander. All the people mentioned above comes under him. Smart, intelligent, good common sense and a natural born leader. This guy here writes a book entitled 'One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer' after he left the Corp. He is now a CEO of Center for a New American Security.
  
  
• Captain Dave 'Captain America' McGraw, he the commander of 3rd platoon. Hate or love him, you really can't miss him out. He gets paranoia very easily and make silly decisions that make most of the people under him disrespects him. Always shoots at anything whenever there is a chance.
  

This mini series is not your typical brotherhood-I-will-die-for-you type of show. It shows how they came across other people's life, enemies & civilians alike, and what their personal thoughts on war and how this conflict changed their thoughts.

Many people, including me believes the armed forces, is well, the army. From what I have learnt, USMC is a different breed of 'animal'. They are very eager to kill.

"See, the Marine Corps is like America's little pitbull. They beat us, starve us, and once in a while they let us attack someone".

Quoted from Cpl Josh Ray Person in HBO's Generation Kill

"We're Reconnaissance Marines. Swift, silent and deadly"

Quoted from Sgt. Larry Shawn 'Pappy' Patrick from HBO's Generation Kill

In short it is worth to watch. It is hilarious and at the same time tells the reality of war. Oh, be prepared to go bonkers while you are watching this. They use alot slangs & NATO phonetics in their conversations. Words like Whiskey Tango, November Juliet, Oscar Mike, 40 Mike-Mike, Hitman Victor etc would probably make you scratch your head.

Understand the slangs and you will get the whole picture. Be warned though, there is alot of fouled language used in this show!

The miniseries ends with one video compilation of their journey, filmed by one of the marines (Cpl Jason Liley) accompanied with Johnny Cash's 'The Man Comes Around'. The clip below is the ending part for Generation Kill. The men were contented with the vid compilation initially, but after a while, emotion sets in. I believe some of them do not feel right with what they have done and begin to leave one by one, with only Trombley to finish the vid compilation.

"Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around" Generation Kill Ending

The Humble Return

I have finally manage to bring myself to write something here. It's been some time since I last wrote here. Well, maybe I am too occupied, or perhaps my creative juice had left me.

To start off a little, I had recently got myself a shooting tool. A humble macro lens. Here are some of the test shots that I had manage to take today. Not very good, I must say.


It was just pure luck to spot this tine weeny spider shading itself under a bunch flowers right outside my house. It did not turn out well as I could not get a decent focus. Worse still, the exposure is bad. Sigh.

It is taken with a Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 lens. Decent lens with decent price. I could not afford a macro from Nikon. It is waaaay too expensive for me to own anyway.

Quick Quake

As of 12th Sept 2007 (roughly around 7pm), it was just like every normal evening. But this evening is one heck of an interesting evening. Most of my colleagues are still in office in 16th floor (as usual, i am there as well). Of all a sudden we felt some minor tremors. Actually i dont quite realise it and i thought it is quite normal. I brush it off as a minor 'interference' due to nearby construction of 'The Pavilion'.

But then again, the tremor seems to be 'playing' around with my chair as i felt my chair rocking back & forth. Soon, one of my colleague said that there is a quake near Indonesia! The 1st two tremor last only a few seconds. But the 3rd one is much stronger and vibrant. So........ we decided to pack our notebooks and get the hell out of the building.. hehe.. What a (scary yet exciting) sensation. There is nothing much to shout about actually, as this is my really first taste of small tremor. Compared to those who are dwelling in Indonesia, they must hv felt 100X more terrible and scared.

So, we took the lift to ground zero and saw a few groups of people have gathered around and seems exited. Some looks abit nervous. As I walked past, I heard whispers and people discussing about their 'exciting experience. Well, i just hope that everything would be fine and there is no casualties this time as compared to the deadly quake in 2004 that kills more than 200,000 people

Ma, Look What I Found...!!

I found an interesting site that might soon bring me some windfall.. this site is a domain name appraisal.. what it really does is to give appraisal to website (domain names) and values it in USD.. come let's try it out.. hehe.. this is only a predictive measurement so dont be disappointed..

http://www.google.com
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 23284
Estimated Domain Name Value: $898,552,844.00

http://www.yahoo.com/
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 32726
Estimated Domain Name Value: $1,523,428,026.00

http://www.youtube.com/
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 3306
Estimated Domain Name Value: $21,194,766.00

http://www.lowyat.net/v2/
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 2071
Estimated Domain Name Value: $693,785.00

http://www.tuition2u.com.my/
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 28
Estimated Domain Name Value: $28.00

http://kylooi.blogspot.com/
Combined Domain Name Appraisal Value Score: 61
Estimated Domain Name Value: $61.00

But now I dont make 5 digit incomes..!! haha.. well, to my dad & mom, I am having a good start here, although slow.. haha..

Zainal Abidin - Hijau

How many would remember the name Zainal Abidin? I am not refering to our current Yang Di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, but the Zainal Abidin that some of us knew him as a singer.

Well, it is a bit disappointing that the famous Wikipedia does not hold any information regarding him. But with a stroke of luck & googling, I found a piece of interview here. I personally like the tunes and lyric of the song named 'Hijau'. Hijau (Green) is about environmental issues that is plaguing us due to human's greed, corruption and obsession. For everyone's hearing pleasure, embedded here is Zainal Abidin's masterpiece, 'Hijau'. Enjoy it :D...

Zainal Abidin - Hijau
Bumi yang tiada rimba

Seumpama hamba

Dia dicemar manusia

Yang jahil ketawa

Bumi yang tiada udara

Bagai tiada nyawa

Pasti hilang suatu hari

Tanpa disedari

Bumi tanpa lautan

Akan kehausan

Pasti lambat laun hilang

Duniaku yang malang

Dewasa ini kita saling merayakan

Kejayaan yang akhirnya membinasakan

Apalah gunanya kematangan fikiran

Bila di jiwa kita masih lagi muda

Dan mentah

Ku lihat hijau

Bumiku yang kian pudar

Siapa yang melihat

Di kala kita tersedar

Mungkinkah terlewat

Korupsi,opresi,obsesi diri

Polusi,depressi,di bumi,kini

Oh..anok-anok

tokleh meghaso mandi laok

Besaing,maing ghama-ghama

Ale lo ni tuo umurnyo bejuto

Kito usoho

Jauhke dari malapetako

Ozon lo ni koho nipih nak nak aghi

Keno make asak

Hok biso wei,pasa maknusio

Seghemo bendo-bendo di dunio

Tokleh tehe

Sapa bilo-bilo